This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present invention, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In many medical environments, a medical fluid is injected into a patient during diagnosis or treatment. One example is the injection of contrast media into a patient to improve CT, Angiographic, Magnetic Resonance, or Ultrasound imaging, using a catheter inserted into a patient's blood vessel.
One of the dangers involved when using a contrast media in the aforementioned procedures is the risk that air from an empty or partially filled syringe may be accidentally injected into the patient. An errant air injection is a risk because a beating heart relies upon the non-compressibility of blood to vacate the blood from ventricle to ventricle by compression. Unlike blood however, air is compressible. The presence of a compressible gas in a heart ventricle can create a situation similar to a “vapor lock”, which effectively stops the heart from pumping blood to the body due to a loss of pressure. This situation (commonly referred to as an air embolism) is created when a large amount of air (e.g., 50-60 cc's) is injected rapidly (e.g., as with an injector used in an angiographic scan) and travels to the heart.
Procedures employed for the operation of contrast media injectors in CT, Angiographic, MRI, and Cardiology departments include a human operator checking that syringes are correctly loaded and filled. However, even in facilities that have safety procedures established, human errors can still result. These errors may lead to situations where an air-filled syringe that was thought to be full of contrast media is errantly injected into a patient, and the patient experiences an air embolism. For instance, medical staff using an angiographic injector may mistakenly assume that an empty, used or unused syringe (which was left in the injector at the end of a previous session) is full and may errantly inject the air from the empty syringe into a patient, thus potentially causing an air embolism.
To further compound the potential for error, contrast media used in medical imaging procedures is frequently colorless, and at least some of such procedures tend to be performed under relatively low light levels to facilitate reading of the resulting images. Both of these factors may tend to increase the chance of error. As such, some users may find an injector system that allows for syringe fill volume detection quite desirable.